What Normal Siblings Do
by MonroeStyne
Summary: Jason confides in Barbara for help, and it turns into a night of scotch, spilled hair dye, heartfelt talks, arguments and most importantly laughter. One shot with Barbara and Jason. Sibling one shot. M For language


**Merry Christmas oneshot! Happy holidays from my twisted imagination to yours! Enjoy**

 **Disclaimer I don't own DC**

It's midnight by the time I finally hack her security system, I would say her system is overkill but I'm the one breaking into her apartment so I thought it best to keep my mouth shut. Although stealth isn't really my strongest virtue, I'm able to slip in through the window with minimal noise, even though I'm positive she already knows someone is here somehow. I step fully onto the counter and with my good hand brace myself on a cabinet door and step to the ground. Just mere inches from the floor the cabinet door snaps from its hinges and before I can catch myself I'm on the ground with a crash.

"Ow." Slips from my lips with a groan. I'm still sore from my most recent stay in Gotham General. "Don't move asshole." Comes a voice form above me. I open my eyes and catch the glint of ginger hair. "Relax Barbie it's me." I make no attempt to move expect for shielding my eyes when she flips the kitchen light. "Jason? What the fuck are you doing here? The others would have just called!" I start to make my way to my feet, stumbling slightly, warenting a hiss of pain. "What can I say, I have a flare for the dramatics." I say. And she shrugs slightly before relaxing and setting her hunting knife of the table to her left. I take a second to just look at her, her messy bedhead, her holey sweats, her tired eyes.

She looks me up and down, then to her cabinet door. "Really Jason?! This is a rental!" "What? Oh… Yeah… you should really get that fixed." "It was fine before you got here." "You can't prove that!" She opens her mouth to say something else, but stops herself, clasps her hands in front of her mouth and breathes deeply. "What do you want Jason?" I pull a grocery bag from behind my back. "Can you help me dye my hair?" She looks at me for a few long seconds before responding. "I'm sorry what?" I sigh and shuffle my feet slightly. This was exactly the thing I'm trying to avoid. I point to the white streak in my hair. "Can you help me hide this?"

"Why can't you do it yourself?" She crosses her arms and cocks her hip. Her signature _I'm not buying the bullshit you're selling_ stance. I take a deep breath and point to my other arm that hangs inert by my side. She approaches me and grabs it, warenting a hiss from me. Hearing this, she carefully takes off my glove and unzips my sleeve far enough to pull it up, revealing a swollen gauze wrapped arm. "What did you do?" Her eyebrows knitted and her eyes glued to the blood stained wrappings. She turns my arm over in her grasp as I talk. "I fell off a building had to get a few pins in my arm, get head scan, stay in the hospital for a week or so- it's not important. Can you help me or not?"

She looks up at me like I just told her I blew up an animal shelter. "You were in the hospital for a week and didn't tell anyone? More importantly, you went under the knife and didn't tell anyone? Don't you have an emergency contact?" Her voice grows soft, and she reaches out gently. Reflexively I step back and draw my arm close to my chest. "Listen I could've broken into Goldie's apartment if I wanted to be pitied." "Jason it's not like that." "Then stop looking at me like that!" She crosses her arms again, angry. "Like what?" I step back again to hide the color in my cheeks. I can't deal with this. Them worr- judging me, questioning me, trying to understand me. "Just forget it Barbie." I turn, try to climb back out of the window, forgetting my arm is compromised, it folds like wet cardboard under my weight and I fall back to the ground. "Fuck!" I slam my head back against her sink in frustration, aggravating the now healing concussion.

I cover my face with my hands, hating myself for letting a bat see me this way, hating myself for not being a bat, hating myself in general. I bend my knees, resting my good arm on one of them and resting my head back against the sink. I feel her watch me for several long seconds before approaching and sitting next to me on the kitchen tile. And we just sit like that for a few minutes, silently, her watching me, me watching the ceiling tiles. Babs has always been like that, always the big sister, the protector, even though I'm a full grown man and can take care- well… maybe not.

"If you're going to say something then just say it." I tell the ceiling. Barbara adjusts beside me. "Why don't you have an emergency contact Jay?" I look to her and to her credit she looks genuinely concerned. "There are a few reasons actually. Are you sure you want to hear them all?" I say as seriously as I can. She smiles. "I guess." "So first off, legally I'm still dead, so I'm a little busy trying to keep my alias fool proof, and it would be weird if Todd Peterson from Vancouver, Canada's emergency contact was a Wayne. I also don't like being an inconvenience to you guys, I just weaseled my way back into the family, if one of you got called every time I was in the hospital, it would get annoying. Plus I… you know." I shrug as if it's the most mundane topic in the world. "Actually I don't know. Care to elaborate?" "Yeah… No. Okay so are we gonna do this thing or not?" I start to stand but she pushes me back down. "I will help you…" She begins. "OK Great!" I start to get up again. "But! You have to either tell me what you were about to say, or tell me what happend at the hospital in terms of treatment." I groan. "Fine, but I'm drinking your booze!" "That's fine with me, as long as you aren't on any meds." She smiles. "You're such a Mom."

"Ha!" She jumps up and offers a hand, which I take, and she helps me to my feet. We head to the bathroom and make a huge mess of black hair dye everywhere. We laugh, we eat cold pizza, we act like brother and sister. Just as she's finishing she asks "Why do you wanna hide this anyway? I think it looks cool." My smile which had settled onto my face in the last 30 minutes or so, slips away and she pretends not to see. "It's not about how it looks, it's about what it reminds me of. What memories come up when someone mentions it." I clear my throat and meet my eyes in the mirror. She nods and changes the subject, goes on to complain about some shitty class she's taking, and how badly she wants to put her sexist teacher in his place once and for all.

We laugh again and I tell her about my fall off the roof, how I caught myself wrong. I tell her about the minor brain bleed that fixed itself and the pin in my forearm. I tell her it's not a big deal, that I'll be causing trouble soon enough. We're almost close to have another one of those sappy moments when she practically pours hair dye in my eye. I reflexively leap from the edge of the tub, and thrash around blindly. I'm furiously wiping my eyes when I hear the click of a shutter and try to turn to grab the camera but of course I can't fucking see because there is black hair dye in my eye. I'm about to get really pissed off when I hear Barbara start laughing so hard she slips and falls into the tub that's full of black dye and soapy water. "Ha! Serves you right for taking my picture in my moment of weakness!" I yell. "Dude! I'm over here!" Says a voice to my left. And we both crack up again.

I grab the towel from around my shoulders and try to wipe my eyes but in my stumbling around, I hit the edge of the tub and as I slip I grab the shower curtain and the whole thing comes down in a crash. Still blind, laying on the cold, wet bathroom floor, my head pounding from the impact and a stitch in my side from laughing, I figure that I'm glad I came. "Shit Jay! Are you okay?" She clambers out of the tub and wipes my eyes with the towel I had been holding until the burning subsides. My eyes are still watering heavily as she hoists me up and we manage to put the shower rod back in place. By the time we situate ourselves facing the mirror again, I have black tear stains running down my face from having dye in my eyes and we spend the next 20 minutes dramatically recreating every soap opera woman ever.

It's 3 AM by the time we get my hair dyed and the bathroom cleaned up, and we settle ourselves on the couch. I succeeded in convincing her that I wasn't on heavy duty painkillers (which of course I am) and we are now drinking scotch. "So before I kick you out. Tell me what you were going to say earlier about not having an emergency contact." I take another sip of my scotch and shake my head. "That wasn't our deal." She rolls her eyes. "For fucks sake Jay will you grow a pair and just tell me?" I raise an eyebrow and chug the rest of my scotch. "Fine. But you can't get all mushy on my after I tell you ok? We both don't need that in our lives." She empties her glass and nods, listening intently. "I didn't put anyone as my emergency contact because I didn't think anyone would care."

I look down at my black tinted hands. I hear her taking in a big breath and hunker down for the _you're such a self absorbed prick_ speech that Artimus gave me when I said that. It's not that I'm a self absorbed prick, I mean I might be… anyways, it's because I'm just not used to people giving a shit about me. It's as simple as that. It just doesn't occur to me.

"Are you fucking kidding me?! 'Look at me I'm Jason, an angsty ex-murderer, and I don't think my family loves me!' Oh please!" She stands and nearly throws her glass to the carpet. I stand, equally as outraged. "This is why I didn't want to fucking tell you! All of you think you understand but you don't! God Dammit you don't, and you can't, and that's not on anyone it's just the way the world works sweetheart! It's not that I don't think you guys love me it just never fucking occurs to me to think of shit like that because I haven't always had a family to depend on! Ok?" "Well it should. It should always occur to you because as long as I'm alive, _I'm_ going to give a shit! Ok?" "Fine!" "Why are you still yelling!?" "Because you're still fucking yelling!" "Well fuck!"

We plop back onto the couch, and I busy myself with sucking the dregs from the bottom of my glass. She reaches behind the couch and chugs straight from the bottle before passing it to me. I take two good chugs before she snatches it back and hits me on the back of the head causing scotch to come jetting out of my nose. "Really?! What the fuck Babs?" I cough out. She laughs and takes another swig.

"Hey Jay?"

"Yes?"

"Is this what normal siblings do?"

"Uh… I guess?"

"Huh, cool."

An hour passes and I wake up with a start on her couch. I guess Babs has gone off to bed and has covered me with a blanket. I bring my hand to my forehead to find a sticky note stuck there. I peel it off groggily and read:

Asswipe, Make me your emergency contact for fucks sake.

Thanks, Your super awesome sister, Barbara.

P.S - I love you.

I let myself laugh as I drag myself off the couch and pull a twenty from my wallet, turning the sticky note over and finding the nearest pen to write:

Fellow Asswipe, Here's some cash for the scotch. Thanks for not kicking me out. For fucks sake fine! I'll make you my damn emergency contact, but you

should probably remind me because I probably won't remember tonight. Thanks again for the hair (but please don't tell the bats about it),

Yor mediocre brother, Jason.

P.S - I love you too… I guess :)

And out the window I go, closing in silently behind me. And as I walk home I let myself smile, as the sun rises (a little too brightly) on a new day.

 **Remember to review so I can continue to improve!**


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